Introduction to "The Core Question"

During the course of our lives, we struggle for identity
from the time we are born to the day we die. Discovering
our true identity or answering the question ”Who Am
I?” is very common for so many of us. While some of us
have a better sense of this than others, a second question
arises that is perhaps more challenging, but related to the
first. We also seek to understand what our life purpose is
or another question we struggle with and muse about is
“What do I want to do when I grow up?”

We all have a sense of uniqueness that is truly our own
experience as we spend a lot of time actively or passively
pursuing answers to these questions. Looking deeper into
these questions highlights one of the bigger dilemmas of
human nature — to understand our identity, or in other
words our purpose, has become a pastime that can be frustrating
as well as consuming.

We strive to understand things in our life that do not
make sense or just don’t fit together. After all, we didn’t
come with a manual. It is this point that I have dwelled on
in great detail, as this question has bothered my problem
solving mind for some time. Developing my problem
solving mind has been greatly enhanced by my career,
which was to design and develop large-scale computer
systems for many Fortune 250 companies for nearly 20
years.

Starting young as a jigsaw puzzle builder, I was able
to complete a 1,000 piece puzzle in a day as an eight year
old — when I put my mind to it. Yet even then life would
sometimes get in the way in a family of two male and
three female siblings, totaling six, that were raised Roman
Catholic to a man of modest income in a Northeastern city
known for cold, snowy winters and beautiful summers.

Where my problem-solving nature came from is not
completely understood by me, but it is somehow otherwise
inherent in who I am, like it or not. In many ways, it has
been a blessing and a curse like all things powerful we don’t
completely understand, as it can easily become a doubleedged
sword. My double-edged sword was further compounded
by the inconsistency of information and events
around me. Things didn’t always seem to be what they were
presented as and the difference confused me.

When I was young, it seemed in some way that I was
trying to do one jigsaw puzzle that was actually several sets
of puzzle pieces all mixed into one. It appeared as a very
complex problem, when in fact it was several sets of problems.
As I grew older, the trick, I discovered, was to separate
these mixed-up puzzles and their pieces to be solved
individually.

If you have ever tried to solve a complex problem, you
know that you have to break the problem down into smaller
and more manageable problems and begin by solving those
first. This is also the nature of solving, and then building
any large and complex computer system, which is what I
did as a systems developer and computer programmer for
many years. For me, all of that practice was a lot of fun yet
challenging as it brought so many variables into play. The
challenges it posed were in some ways very similar to the
challenges of growing up and understanding the variety of
variables that went into those questions around Who am
I? What do I (really) want to do with my life? How do I get
there?

The challenges around my double- edged sword growing
up were compounded when, at the age of twelve, my seventeen-
year old older brother was killed in an automobile
accident. If the pieces were all mixed up before that, things
really started to get confusing for me now. It happened one
cold night in December just before Christmas where he
was here one moment and gone the next.

Death is a difficult thing in itself to comprehend, but, to
a twelve year old already confused by all the misinformation
in his life, this added levels that deeply compounded
the nature of that core question — Who am I?, — into a
scope that would take many years and perhaps a lifetime
to resolve. I say a lifetime because the confusion or misinformation
does not necessarily stop with a single traumatic
event and additional elements as such will further compound
or deepen one’s core question.

In my case, it was compounded seventeen years later
with the passing of my other brother dying of AIDS at the
age of thirty-two. Add this to the misinformation around
sexuality, religion, and one big confusing pile of stuff — all
that defied explanation, much less resolve of any kind. In
these depths of not only despair, but bankruptcy, homelessness
and isolation came some answers that I stumbled
across or sometimes hit me over the head. These answers
and how I got to them is what I will share with you, and keep in mind for now,
the key word here is how.

I’ll come back to the importance of how later and say that
this material comes from a deep and inherent understanding
of problem solving and formal training in computer
science, computer programming, systems development
and a touch of artificial intelligence thrown in to boot. I tell
you this now because if you didn’t know or think about it,
we humans developed computers after the way we think.
In essence, we think like computers because we created
them to do repetitive and other tasks that we didn’t want
to do. My understanding and depth were strengthened as
I used a variety of different programming languages as well
as taught some of those programming languages in classes
at several universities.

In addition to my programming background, I had
formal training around psychology, counseling, nutrition,
and some less traditional fields like hypnotherapy, yoga,
NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), guided imagery,
and even handwriting analysis, to help me understand the
human side of the equation. We do think like computers
but the biggest difference is that computers do not emote
whereas we humans do.

We all like the story of the phoenix, the mythical bird
that magically rises from the ashes when all looked lost. My
book is a bit like that except I will demystify the rising or, in
our case, what the rebuilding is all about and more so how
it is done. We didn’t come with a manual, but I do strongly
believe this book can give you a framework of what that
looks like for you.

This is not a book telling you to do as I did, which may
be a difficult idea to comprehend in the world of self help
help books. It is however, about learning to become aware
of who you are, understanding how you think and creating
or being able to manifest change in a way that suits you by
allowing you to create your own framework and manual
that makes your life very user (self) friendly and fun. You
also know that once you are in that state, it is easier to
share that with one another, relationally speaking or with
many others, neighborly or globally speaking.

When it comes to personal growth, I suspect that for
many of you, this is not the first book you have read on this
subject. One of the things that is different about this book,
however, is that it doesn’t tell you what to do, but creates
a pathway of learning based in your own personal experience.
Each of our personal experiences will vary wildly,
so you should know that yours is different from mine and
from the person standing next to you or across the planet.

This book, however, will take you on a journey of your
own experience and allow you not only to understand
that better, but assist you in letting go of some parts that
no longer serve you as well as reframing that information
into something that does work for you. The whole model is
essentially based on the three steps or phases of awareness,
understanding and manifesting.

That may sound simple, perhaps over simplified, but it
really can be as easy as 1-2-3 because the premise to simplify
one’s mindset around personal growth and refinement
is not only valid, but makes the whole process more attainable.
With this in mind and like the phoenix, let our (your)
flight begin!